India Leads Global Inbound Remittances

India received by far the highest international remittances of any country worldwide in 2022, according to World Bank data published in the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) 2024 World Migration Report on Tuesday. International remittances are defined as money sent from workers living abroad to their home countries.

It is also the first country ever to have passed the $100 billion mark for inbound remittances. India was trailed some way behind by Mexico ($61.1 billion), which had toppled China ($51 billion) from the second position in 2021. The majority of the inflows for France and Germany, which appear in rank 5 and 10, respectively, are not household transfers but “relate to salaries of cross-border workers who work in Switzerland while residing in France or Germany”, according to the report.

In terms of the top sources of international remittances, the United States ($79.15 billion in 2022), Saudi Arabia ($39.35 billion), Switzerland ($31.91 billion), Germany ($25.60 billion) and China ($18.26 billion) are the biggest senders. The UAE’s data was not published this year by the World Bank but would usually also appear in the top 10 list.

The writers of the report highlight that the World Bank’s global data on international remittances does not take into account unrecorded flows through formal or informal channels. This means the data provided is likely below the actual figures.